Posted on February 11th, 2012 under Other. Tags: buildings, flag, gavle, Nikon 18-200mm VR II, nikon d7000, sweden. Comments Off on Walking through Gävle, Sweden’s Old Town (gamla stan)

Tattooed Swedes enjoying the sun at the Getaway Rock Festival

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is set in Sweden. If you visit Sweden you’ll see a lot more than dragon tattoos though. I doubt anyone tracks these things, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweden has the highest per capita amount of tattoos. The largest tattoo conventions tend to happen in Sweden, in part, because of this.

The guy in the middle, adding a sunburn to his tattooed body, has a Japanese Oni on his back. Japan probably has the lowest per capita amount of tattoos in the world so it’s a bit ironic that Japanese things (like the kanji on the right guy’s left leg) are a frequent piece of tattoo art.

Posted on January 23rd, 2012 under Japan, Other. Tags: getaway rock festival, Nikon 18-200mm VR II, nikon d7000, people, sweden. Comments: 2

On my way back to Copenhagen from the Getaway Rock Festival in Gavle, Sweden this past summer I spent an afternoon in Stockholm. I took a few hundred photos, but haven’t looked at them yet. Today’s pic is one of them. It came up as my photo of the day.

I followed a Rick Steves’ guidebook which I no longer own so I don’t have many details on this stained glass window. From the date on the bottom it looks like it was created about a hundred years ago for the German Church it now stands in, a building which was first begun in the 14th Century.

Posted on December 26th, 2011 under Other. Tags: stockholm, sweden. Comments: 1

Old Town at summer's dawn -- Gävle, Sweden

I took today’s photo at 2:29 a.m. in early July in the farthest place north I’ve ever been–Gävle, Sweden. I had no tripod so there are no photographic tricks of light here. The shutter on my D7000 remained open for a mere 1/200th of a second. The sky never became totally dark on this evening/morning. A long sunset turns into a long sunrise this far north in the summer. I was walking back to my hotel through Gamla Stan, Gävle’s “Old Town”, from the Getaway Rock Festival.

The Old Town of Gävle contains many buildings from the 17th Century and the cobble stone streets are also from that time period.

Posted on November 3rd, 2011 under Other. Tags: buildings, gavle, night photography, sunrise, sweden. Comments Off on Gävle (Sweden) Old Town (gamla stan)

Malmö Museum exhibition of pig-headed humans

I had been through Malmö, Sweden a number of times on the train. Once I even went outside the train station, but it was raining so hard I couldn’t really see anything. With just a few days left in Scandinavia, and nothing else to do after several consecutive days of poor weather in Copenhagen, we decided to head over to Malmö with the hope that the weather would get a bit better. It didn’t.

What do you do when sightseeing in lousy weather? You go to museums. We went to Malmö Museer which is connected to the 15th Century Malmöhus Castle. Neither were spectacular in the rain, and I’m guessing they aren’t in good weather either.

Malmo Museum was the wackiest museum I’ve ever encountered. The exhibits are not in English; not that that would make much difference. The exhibits are seemingly random. Walk in one room to find natural history, the next is about a concentration camp, the next is an aquarium, and the next may very well be an art gallery featuring pig-headed humans. This place was absolutely bizarre, although I don’t think it intended to be such which made it rather sad.

Malmö Museer "No Shit! Eco Design" exhibit

This was about the only sign in English, and it rather well sums up the craziness of the place.

Posted on August 8th, 2011 under Other. Tags: Malmo, museums, sweden. Comments Off on Malmö Museer (Malmo, Sweden Museum)